LSU baseball
By Hunt Palmer
As Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson suffocate minor league lineups, LSU’s pitching staff has stumbled.
Losing two of the best starting pitchers in the country creates a massive void that LSU has not filled. It’s resulted in the SEC’s worst ERA, highest walk total and second worst WHIP with three games to play.
No role has been sufficiently filled.
“Our job is to try to have the roster built, have the blueprint or platform to help navigate the challenges that you have,” said head coach Jay Johnson. “We had plenty of challenges last year. Like Mississippi State and Alabama were ahead 6-1 on Kade Anderson last year who’s the number three pick in the draft, but we had enough complimentary pieces to be able to navigate around that–a good enough offense to come back when you’re down five….relievers to keep them close enough. And then, when we took the lead, we could go to Zac (Cowan) or Casan (Evans)to win.”
Cowan and Evans formed a devastating duo in the back of the Tiger bullpen a season ago. Evans was entrusted with the Friday night role, and Cowan has done a little bit of everything. In turn, Friday nights haven’t gone the way they did with Anderson on the mound, and the bullpen has been weakened.
That’s how you lose six of nine SEC series and get swept four times.
“I look at it as like, can we support maybe our flaws?” Johnson said. “And we just have not supported them as well this year. And so, we’ll go back and look at all of them and try to do that.”
Johnson has spoken in future tense more in the last month than he has during any season in his five at LSU. That comes as little surprise considering this is easily the worst of the half-decade. He’s also shown a willingness to discuss shortcomings and poor fortune that have derailed this season.
Cooper Moore left the fifth SEC game of the season and never returned. Evans missed a pair of starts with arm discomfort. The first came as a surprise hours before the series opener at Mississippi State.
Few teams in college baseball can handle front line starting pitching injuries. LSU completely buckled.
“I think losing Cooper Moore was a lot bigger deal than we tried to cover it with,” Johnson said. “You know, that was a big deal. He was our best strike thrower. He was our most successful pitcher early in the season. I firmly believe we would have won the series at Mississippi State, which might sound crazy because we got swept, had Casan just pitched five or six innings instead of not being able to pitch. You know, like there’s been some unfortunate deals with that.”
The issues run deeper than injury. Walk totals have been alarming. LSU has thrown 82 wild pitches. Kentucky is second worst in the league with 56. Plenty of LSU’s pitchers light up radar guns and will be draftable prospects. In a stunning statistical conundrum, the Tiger staff still leads the SEC in strikeouts by a sizeable margin.
Talent is not the problem.
“Yes, you can recruit. We have talented pitchers, but taking that talent and making it usable skill, it takes experience,” Johnson said. “It takes coaching. It takes mindset. It takes pitch development. It takes all of those things, and then get better as you go with time. We just got to keep working on that. Like I said, I feel good about some of the adjustments that we’re going to make with some of it. And I want to wait to move forward with that until we get closer into to next fall.”
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